B&B La Cicala, Ascoli Piceno

What to see near B&B La Cicala

The Piceni, or Picenti, began to stand out as a people in the Iron Age and from the 9th century BC controlled the central Adriatic area between the Marche and Abruzzo, with Ascoli as their capital. One explanation of their name, reported by Strabo and Pliny, tells of Sabine peoples guided by a woodpecker, a bird sacred to Mars, during a ritual migration, the "sacred spring".

In 269 BC Ascoli rebelled against the Roman attempt to subdue the territory and still managed to remain independent as an allied city. In 91 BC it started the Social War and gave in only in 89 BC, after a long siege by the army of Gnaeus Pompeius Strabo. From that conflict survive the lead sling bullets found mainly along the Castellano stream: some bear inscriptions in which the name Italia appears for the first time.

These projectiles, together with pottery, weapons and jewelry from excavations in the area, are kept at Ascoli's State Archaeological Museum. Among the most interesting pieces is the funerary stele of Castignano, with a boustrophedon inscription, meaning one that changes direction on each line, in which a son warns anyone who might desecrate the tomb of his father and mother.